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The “Dolls” Target

Controlled subject — dolls target

Uwe writes:

Speaking of "subject":

I can only speak for myself but am sure to have a lot of silent followers in this regard:

PLEASE think about finding a new setting for your sharpness/resolution-tests!
these dolls ... really ... your audience is 99.99 % male I presume : )

DIGLLOYD: I don’t know for sure, but my audience is probably ~85% male.

To me, the dolls are interesting photographic targets. That’s all.

It is important to have a reference scene. Though I prefer to shoot a lot of field examples, a deluge of new lenses means that it might take considerable calendar time to work through all the lenses in the field, and especially to make a variety of images under varying conditions. Time demands and weather conditions favor shooting a controlled target first, which often reveals useful information for working in the field.

The ‘“dolls” setup is an objective controlled test that can be quite revealing of camera and lens performance. I set it up specifically to reveal various aspects of camera and lens performance):

  • Fine details, patterns, textures.
  • Grayscale for tonal range and white balance.
  • A 3D depth front to back which helps reveals focus shift, especially with the aid of the black/white ruler and background behind it.
  • Saturated reds which are out of gamut in even AdobeRGB, dark blues, greens, yellows), etc.
  • Moiré-inducing cloth weave.
  • A black/white contrasty ruler for focusing accuracy.

A superior subject would be hard to come by. Different perhaps, but not superior.

Sometimes there is more of the dolls target at once than I’d like— but sometimes covering a slug of new lenses offers no time to get out in the field with each one (usually I need several dedicated days per lens for field shots, and I have to schedule such things, hard to do for 3/4/5 lenses or cameras). Or bad weather, etc. So a fixed target lets me both understand lens behavior and offer some coverage ASAP. And I can have confidence in near perfection of focus and white balance.

If one prefers bottles of alcohol and flat resolution charts and printed test targets, such stuff can be found elsewhere— and in my experience they are of marginal value from the standpoint of revealing lens performance on 3D subjects, offering a sub-optimal mix of detail and texture and color and 3D-ness across the frame.

Finally, whatever the subject matter, the same target from lens to lens offers perspective across lenses and cameras.


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